The
first release for September 2012 is "Gods and
Monsters" and sees Sylvester McCoy, as the Seventh
Doctor, with companions Ace, played by Sophie Aldred,
and Hex, played by Philip Olivier. It is the third
of three releases for the Seventh Doctor in 2012.

This
story, written by Mike Maddox and Alan Barnes, guest
stars John Standing (Game of Thrones). It has been
directed by Ken Bentley and was recorded on the 23rd
and 24th January 2012.

Alan
Barnes, Script Editor of - and mastermind behind
- this Seventh Doctor’s trilogy of audio stories,
and co-writer of its finale, has revealed that: ‘It's
never going to go well for someone called Hex! He
is definitely our prince of sorrows. Whenever a Hex
story comes up, I think “How can we make things
even worse?” But it might not be for no reason...’

As
well as bringing to a climax the eight-year saga
that is the continuing torture of Hex, "Gods
and Monsters" features the return of Fenric,
an adversary the Seventh Doctor and Ace memorably
faced in the 1989 television story "The
Curse of Fenric".

Ace

‘It's
lovely to come across an old enemy’,
Sophie Aldred, who plays Ace, has revelled. ‘As
we've been doing it, I've been remembering all
these bits about filming Fenric, which is great.
And "Dragonfire" as well, because there's
a bit of "Dragonfire" that comes into
it - it's really amazing, the detail. Apart from
Daleks and Cybermen, who everybody tends to meet
eventually and maybe a few times as well, I always
thought Fenric and the Haemovores were some of
the most successful monsters, and it was a shame
they hadn't come back in Big Finish. They were
proper scary, really’.

Alan
Barnes has revealed about writing for Fenric ‘Oh,
he's really good. Unlike many other villains, he
doesn't so much have a plan as a general modus
operandi. He works through games, he works through
riddles, and I think the more contained villains
- if they only operate within certain rules, if
they only behave in a certain way - the more interesting
they are. Fenric's restriction is that he can only
play according to the rules of a particular game’.But whose game is it, who's he
playing against? These are the questions that come
out in this story.

Big Finish Magazine
- Vortex: Issue 43 (September 2012)

Vortex: Issue 43

Issue
43 of 'Vortex - The Big Finish Magazine' was
also sent out to subscribers with this release.

The
TARDIS travellers arrive in a bizarre landscape seemingly
immune to the physical laws governing the rest of
the universe. Ace, Hex, Sally and Lysandra battle
to rescue the Doctor from the trap he's walked into… soon
realising that the odds are stacked against them.

Because
the Doctor is playing an old adversary again: Fenric,
shatterer of worlds. But the dice were loaded against
the Doctor and his allies long ago, in the dim and
distant past - and defeat's their only option.

On the Inside Cover:

Writer's Notes

The
trouble with writing the final part to a trilogy
is you can't say too much about it beforehand without
giving the game away.

So...

Before
we were married, my wife Phillipa lived in Perivale
for a year, sharing a rented house with other young
people straight out of college. Like most shared houses,
the largest room belonged to someone who was never
there, and the box room belonged to someone who never
left the house (Phillipa had the middle room).

When
Alan Barnes, Jonathan Morris, Matt Fitton and I set
out the story arc that ends here, I always knew that
Perivale would feature in it. It never felt like home
to Phillipa, but then I imagine it didn't to Ace either.

Wayland's
Smithy is a real place, found on the hill path that
overlooks the Vale of the White Horse, near Uffington.
It's a wild, beautiful place. You should go. Wrap up,
and take a flask and picnic.

There is a third location in this story, but I would
advise you against looking for it. Depending on your
cosmology, your theology and your plain bad luck, you
might find it.

Your move.
Mike Maddox
May 2012

Director’s Notes

Gods
and Monsters has made me feel guilty for abusing, or
at least over-using, the word 'epic'. This play is
on a scale unlike any other story I've worked on. It's
the result of a seed planted decades ago. But it doesn't
just reach through time, it reaches into space, across
the universe, into the heavens and between dimensions.
It's also beyond multi-companion, and at the same time
it's got the sting of a Seventh
Doctor solo adventure.
How Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox have managed it, I'll
never know.

What I do know is it gave me the opportunity to work
with a wonderful company of actors. I'm always blown
away by the people I have the great privilege to work
with at Big Finish, and Gods and Monsters is no exception.
Like the characters in the play, some of the actors
were returning to Big Finish, and some playing with
us for the first time. All were a pleasure to work
with, and have brought vividly to life this most enormous
of tales.

I've
said it before, but this time I mean it: Gods and
Monsters is the end of a chapter.